Tailor and Traitor
by Shadows of a Dream
Summary: "This is the story of a gifted girl who wanted to be beautiful." Fanfic for the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. SPOILER WARNING for Siege & Storm, and Shadow & Bone as well, I suppose. To be a total of 16 drabbles. Also available on Figment under the username Laura Genn.
1. Vanishing Point

**1.**

The kick of the sleek black mare's hoof stung her cheekbones, but that is not why five-year-old Genya Safin cries.

With a damp cloth, she wipes away the dirt and blood from her face, but it is all in vain. The narrow gash along her cheek is glaringly obvious, a sharp red line across her alabaster skin. Even her scarlet waves of hair can't conceal it without hiding her amber eyes.

Genya gazes into the mirror with defiance, her reflection blurring and rippling through the mist of tears that she cannot stifle. Her lower lip wobbles despite herself. _The other children will laugh at me. "Silly Genya, did you walk into a door?"_

From the next room, she hears her mother calling. "Genya? Where in Caryeva have you gone?"

_She'll tell me it's fine, and it's not... It's not! _Genya runs her fingers over the cut, gingerly, tenderly, and closes her eyes. She imagines the offending imperfection is gone. She imagines her face is beautiful again. Her fingertips tingle; her skin tickles beneath her tentative touch.

"Genya!" The door flies open with a start, and there stands her mother, hair wild, face flushed in her panic. "I looked everywhere for you! Are you all right?"

Genya catches her breath. "Yes," she says, trembling in disbelief, staring in awe at the surface of the mirror. She doesn't tell her mother that one of Father's horses kicked her.

She doesn't tell her because the cut is gone.


	2. Tracing Scars

**2.**

They glide in like angels, their vibrant _keftas _streaking red, blue, and purple like watercolors in the rain.

The blue-robed man dismounts first and tethers his steed, which gives a proud but faintly disapproving snort. "Vody Khodunki," says the Grisha, the pale blue embroidery on his cuffs shining in the sunlight. "We have come to conduct the tests."

_Tests. _Genya Safin stands very still in her doorway. Already, villagers cluster at a safe distance, like frightened birds scattered by a sudden, startling sound. In the corner of her eye, Genya glimpses a young man, tightly gripping his little boy's hand until his knuckles go white. All of Caryeva watches warily - wondering, trembling at the descent of the Second Army.

"Odaren Nyy," says the purple-robed woman, bowing deeply. "I am merely an observer. Istre Bitel will test the hopefuls."

The crimson-cloaked man has sharp, perceptive brown eyes and a haughty brow like a hawk's. "Bring the children," he requests, and though his voice is low, it resounds with inner power, reverberates through the crowd like the striking of a great drum.

The children come, slowly at first, then quickly as the trickle becomes a steady flow. Istre takes the first boy's hand in his own, and Caryeva holds its breath, but there is nothing to fear - not from this one.

The Corporalnik sighs. "_Otkazat'sya_," he says, and swiftly the boy is dismissed. He wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his tiny hand.

The other two Grisha - the man in darkest indigo, the woman in brilliant purple - only observe, impassive.

The next child steps bravely forward, jaw set. A girl. No older than four, by the looks of her wide eyes and softly rounded face. _Otkazat'sya. _When she weeps, it is in sadness. When her parents shed tears, it is in thinly veiled relief.

Genya's heart thuds unevenly against her ribs. The line moves forward; she takes another step. And another. And another. She looks to the woman draped in violet for encouragement - and the world seems to tilt beneath her, the sky spinning like a top.

The Fabrikator has skin like snow, untouched by blemish. Her eyes are the crystal blue of the True Sea, or at least, what Genya imagines it must look like. Her hair falls in delicate auburn ringlets, framing the smooth curves of her cheekbones, her jaw, her neck. She is more than beautiful.

She is flawless.

The Grisha catches the child staring, and quickly the child turns away. "Is something wrong?"

"You're beautiful," Genya says without thinking.

"Am I?"

Genya swallows. "I want to be beautiful like you."

The Grisha glides toward her, kneels to meet her eyes. "We all have flaws, child," she whispers, taking the child's hand in her own. Only now does Genya notice the slender scars along the Fabrikator's right palm - remnants of Materialnik mistakes, failed experiments, foolish errors. "Our scars make us who we are."

Genya grips the Grisha's hand, closing her eyes. "But I want to be beautiful."

"Each is beautiful in her own way, child."

Genya's eyebrows knit together. She concentrates. She tightens her hold on the Grisha's wounded palm. "I want to be perfect," she says, releasing the woman's hand.

Silence falls like the night, sweeping and absolute. The Fabrikator stares, eyes glassy, at her palm. She blinks once. Twice. Still the unearthly truth swims before her watering eyes.

Her scars are gone.

**A/N: True to the spirit of the Grisha trilogy, all original Grisha names here are Russian - or at least, the closest thing to Russian that Google yielded. I'm not a linguist...**

**Anyway, the glossary:**

**istrebitel' - fighter**

**vody - water**

**khodunki - walker**

**odarennyy - gifted**

**Istre Bitel in this chapter is a Heartrender, so the name is fitting. Vody Khodunki's full name means "water walker," and given the resemblance of the Saints religion in Ravka to Catholicism, I thought the spiritual connotations surrounding the phrase were rather neat. Lastly, Odaren Nyy is the Fabrikator, and since all Grisha are gifted, I thought it was pretty fitting.**

**End fangirl rant.**

**Reviews are beautiful things... *poke***


	3. Beginning and End

**3.**

Baghra is a fright to the eyes of a child, the oven of her hut casting wild firelight over her wiry limbs, the hollows of her bones, the pallid color of her skin.

"Try harder, girl," she snaps, and whacks Genya with her stick. "Try harder."

Genya sniffs, her throat constricting. She cannot heal deep wounds, or slow a heartbeat, or all but boil a man's blood in his veins. She can smooth scars, she can repair imperfections, but the higher callings of a Corporalnik are lost to her, slipping from her grasp like an elusive thread at the edge of a garment she has only begun to understand.

"Make yourself useful, girl!" sneers Baghra. "Don't you want to find your place here? Don't you want to know where you belong in the Little Palace?"

More trials. Genya cannot shape metal with her hands, or sense the calls of assorted chemicals, or imagine new contraptions that only a Fabrikator would consider possible. Occasionally she makes a dent in the metal, curves the edge, folds a loose shard - but she is no Durast.

"Try harder, girl!" Baghra demands, and lashes out with her stick again.

Only then does Genya begin to cry, because she is an imperfect Grisha, a child now abandoned, and all she can do is heal the cut Baghra's stick leaves on her back.

"Don't you want to succeed, girl?"

Genya Safin chokes on her tears. "I want to be perfect," she says.


	4. The Greatest Among You

**4.**

When Genya Safin wakes, the first thing she becomes aware of is not the soft cotton sheets (though whether they were Fjerdan, Shu, or Ravkan peaked her curiosity last night,) or the spring sun streaming through the tall glass window, or the unfamiliar largeness of the room around her, or even the breathtaking height of the domed ceiling.

The first real thought that arises, even before she opens her eyes, is the raw, aching absence of her mother's breathing in the next room.

Her second thought is that the satin pillowcase is damp, though she doesn't remember crying. The tears must have slipped out in her sleep, then. Maybe she'll have run out of them in time for training with Baghra. Maybe then failure won't hurt as much, if she can only hold her chin high.

But this morning, like a miracle, they don't send her to Baghra.

One after another, the servants arrive at her chamber. They don't even bother to knock, and there's no lock on the door, so it's all Genya can do to hope her eyes aren't red from the crying and her hair isn't ruined from the night. The servants say very little to her, thankfully - they are dressed simply, when they speak it is in gentle tones, and for all practical purposes they are identical, save for their names, and Genya doesn't know what they are.

They lead her to an opulent bath that looks to her like a swimming pool, and for the first time, she washes with expensive soap, sweet-smelling shampoo that reminds her of a meadow, a limitless supply of blissfully warm water. For the first time since leaving Caryeva, Genya considers, _I could get used to being Grisha._

_If only I knew what sort of Grisha I'm supposed to be._

When she (reluctantly) steps out of the bath, she is given a simple robe for the sake of temporary modesty - and then it begins. The servants make her sit still for a small eternity, applying cosmetics, curling her hair into elegant waves, making her amber eyes shine like jewels in her young, young face. A small, childish part of Genya resents how long this takes, and she begins to fidget. Another part that she thinks far older, (though perhaps it is equally childish,) drinks it in because it means she is becoming beautiful.

One question lingers like an uncertain scent in the air. _Why?_

"Where are we going?" Genya asks. No answer; it's as if she hasn't spoken. A servant gives her hair a sharp tug, and she has to fight back a wince. "Why do I have to look so pretty?" she adds, not that she minds looking pretty.

When the servants tell her that she is to meet the Queen, she doesn't believe them. Not when she looks into the mirror and sees a cherubic stranger's face. Not when one of the servants all but flies from the chamber to retrieve something for her to wear. Not when the servant returns with a child-sized _kefta _the color of winter - untouched white, pure ethereal innocence - and the intricate embroidery at the cuffs glistens gold.

Genya traces the gold thread with her fingertip, amazed. "Why white and gold?" she asks the nearest servant, curious.

"What?"

"What Grisha wears white? What kind of Grisha am I?"

The servant smiles, a smile so achingly similar to that of Genya's mother that Genya feels it in her gut. "A very special kind of Grisha, child," the servant says before hurrying her out the door.

Genya bridles at the indignity of being dragged along as if by a leash. "Where are we -"

"There's no time, child," says the servant as she hurries through the maze of lavish corridors. "_Moya tsaritsa _does not like to be kept waiting."

_She means the Queen. _Genya Safin takes a deep breath. _All Saints... I'm going to meet the Queen._

From then on, the day passes in a blur.

A child does not know when she has become a trite gift, a placid doll, something to be dressed in pretty clothes and paraded about like a royal puppy. A child, told she is special, does not know that _special _is merely another word for _different. _A child does not understand, when she babbles to the other Grisha children of the Queen's delicacies that she is so priveleged to share, why the children look at her and whisper, "_Rawga,_" before turning away.

_Rawga. _It is the Ravkan word for servant.

A child does not see the foolishness of belonging to a Queen, in that she will forever belong nowhere else, and someday, she will also belong to the King.

A child does not notice when the King's eye, instead of admiring his wife, wanders absently to the long-legged, flaxen-haired servant that escorted Genya to the throne room. A child cannot understand the acute pain that flickers across the Queen's face and is gone.

"Pretty thing," the Queen breathes, marveling at Genya's unique _kefta. _"It suits you, child."

Boldly, wondering where her courage was coming from, Genya says, "It's Genya Safin, _moya tsaritsa._"

"Genya Safin." The Queen smiles. "I hope we will be friends, Genya. Would you like that?"

Without thinking, without knowing, Genya nods and says, "Yes."

Because she is five years old. Because she wants to be a beautiful princess in a beautiful palace with a beautiful place to belong. Because she is a child.

Because only when she undresses that night does a child realize, with a strange, vicious twist of doubt, that the royal servants also wear white and gold.

**A/N: I'm not entirely sure how old Genya is in S&B and S&S, so I'm going to take a leap of faith and put her somewhere between fifteen and seventeen in the next chapter; I haven't decided yet. I'll be leaping forward to an older Genya in chapter five, seeing as there's nothing else particularly critical to cover in her childhood. The situation between Genya and the King will be addressed, but rest assured, it will not be overly graphic. This story is firmly rated T; I intend to keep it that way. That doesn't change the fact, however, that the King ****_used _****Genya, and that's an important part of who she turns out to be in the end, because it's the first thing, I think, that really broke her.**

******Also, the Ravkan word I invented - _Rawga_ - isn't completely random. My Russian Google search yielded that _sluga _meant servant, while _rawb _meant slave. Combining them (clumsy, I know, but I don't speak Russian!) resulted in the word _Rawga. _I liked the idea that it could imply servant or slave, because Genya sometimes feels like both, I think.**

**Thank you for reading!**

**Now, like calls to like... You are reader. I am a writer. You cannot help but write a review... XD**


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